1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an interface screen that displays objects such as characters and icons. More particularly, the invention relates to a technique of controlling the display of display objects on interface screens.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, to switch one process mode to another on the interface screen (in each mode a specific mode is performed), the user operates hard buttons on the keyboard in most cases. The user pushes a hard button, thus selecting the desired process mode shown in a process-mode menu displayed. Then, the process-mode menu is switched to the initial setting menu for the selected process mode. (See Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 2002-261918, Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 2001-265558, Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open No. 11-134160, and Jpn. Pat. Appln. Laid-Open Publication No. 7-110754.)
On such a conventional interface screen as described above, however, the mode buttons to be selected to switch one process mode to another, have the same size, no matter how important each mode button is or how often it is selected. The user cannot help but read the words or icons displayed on the screen in association with the mode buttons, in order to decide which mode button he or she should select. When the user selects one mode on the conventional interface screen, the screen instantaneously changes to another. Inevitably, the user may fail to determine whether the mode has indeed been switched to the process mode he or she has just selected. To switch a mode to another, the user may depress a hard key to have the top menu of the other mode displayed on the interface screen. In this case, the freedom of user operation is small because of the linear hierarchy of process modes.
Information may be transmitted while it is being copied. In this case, while some setting is being performed in the information-send mode, the conventional interface screen cannot display a message, informing the user that a job is undergoing in the copy mode. Consequently, the user cannot easily know which job is proceeding at present. To confirm whether such works are proceeding in parallel, the user need to switch from one process mode to another, and then to the setting menu dedicated to the other process mode. This is not desirable in view of the efficiency of work.